I hope it's clear by now why the seating chart leak registered with much of the Jezebel staff as a thoughtless potential threat to our safety instead of as a harmless media in-joke, but if not, I'd like to explain here so that something like this doesn't happen again.

Being a woman who writes professionally on the internet is quite different from being a man who writes professionally on the internet. It's an onslaught, and much of it happens in private inboxes. The complaining or critical emails Jezebel writers receive are, I'd wager, of a considerably different tone than at other sites. If they're not explicit threats—and often enough they are—then they're at least coated in explicitly violent sexual or abusive language. When you receive those kinds of emails on a regular basis, you learn a certain guard, you learn certain precautions. Sure, much of it is unavoidable. But built in to that guard should be the presumption that your workplace will protect you as much as it can.

And it's not just emails and comments. In December, Anna was targeted by 4chan. They sent deliveries to an older, doxxed address, threatened to trigger a SWAT raid, and made violent threats. (This wasn't long after the site was linked to a woman's murder in Washington State.) Kavi accompanied her to the police station, where she filed a report and was met with a lot of incredulity. (You can read her reported feature about this experience on the site next week.) There's little legal recourse for people who get harassed and threatened on the internet (there's a reason Amanda Hess went so far as to call it "the next civil rights issue"); what we do have is a company that should take our writers' safety and concerns seriously.

I think this is a problem of perspective—more accurately, a problem of men of a certain rank not having any. I assume "Here you go Gamergate" wasn't our leak's joke, but it may as well have been. That joke is only funny if you don't get threatening emails from people who participate in Gamergate on a regular basis; that joke is only funny if you're privileged enough to not receive emails that detail the ways in which the writer would rape you if he had the opportunity to do so. Not everyone gets those emails. This leak, along with its publication, presents a fairly clear picture of who here is lucky enough to feel safe on the internet.

One more note about that point: "feeling threatened" by sites like 4chan and 8chan isn't a concession to their perceived power. This isn't about ad sales this time; it's about the next Elliot Rodger. It's about making our writers (and potential hires) feel safe and protected while they do the fearless work we ask of them. I hope Gawker Media learns to take that tradeoff as seriously as we should.

Tommy suggested I post something along these lines on Jezebel, but in the interest of my writers, I don't want to bring more attention to the seating chart than it already has. I also don't think it should always be Jezebel's responsibility to publicly hold Gawker Media accountable for its blunders. Here, though, is a thought for one way to move forward from this: back in December, Annalee hosted a meeting about writer harassment, and we spoke with Heather about putting together something like a database so that we can at least understand the abundance of threats our writers receive here. It might also help us think proactively about giving our writers viable legal options for when they do receive legitimate threats. This is a real problem, and we should treat it as such.

Thanks.

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So, is a seating chart like a map of which seats you're taking on a plane? Or a map of your office or something? What would even be the point in leaking that? It sounds stupid and pointless to me, and I totally agree that it's probably* not something you want to be public about you if you're getting threats of whatever kind.

* Not sure because, again, I don't know what a seating chart is, but I can't really imagine it being anything that this doesn't apply to.

I don't know what the point is of leaking and I also don't know what the point is of making lots of jokes about it, which happened. Some very cool people who have defended women against harassment before seemed to think this was A-OK to post and mock. LOL look where everyone is physically located! It's pretty disappointing. I expect it from the kind of dangerous element Emma is discussing in the above memo; I don't expect it from readers/commenters who present themselves as allies. It's heartbreaking. Really.

I guess one could make jokes about whoever is closest to the toilet or something, but are there really people who think it's that funny? Definitely not worth it I guess.

I am blessed to not get threats of any kind, but I still wouldn't want my exact physical location to be public. If someone knows exactly where I am, they can easily figure out WHO I am, i.e. doxx me. I enjoy my anonymity and would find it threatened by this kind of publication. But I guess finding your bodily integrity/autonomy or even your life threatened by it must be even worse.

Are there any people who would be OK with this kind of publication? Maybe people who never get threats AND use their real name on the internet (is that even possible if you have anything interesting to say?), but even then I'm not so sure.

That's what the jokes were about — at least the ones I saw on kinja. The fact that they have no elbow room. Who has the best seat in the house. Pretty run of the mill joking about where people sit in an office setting (and not specifically mentioning Jezbel, it was about the way all of the sites in the Denton Empire are seated together). In retrospect the violation of privacy is frightening but it was not joking about that or the safety of the staff, just who would be the most fun to share a cubicle with.